In handcuffs and headed to face a judge, 24-year-old Jennifer Cutruzzula said she was sorry for what she did to her daughter.

"A lot of my family members make fun of me because my daughter's half and half, and I had no where to live and I didn't know what to do," Cutruzzula said.

Cutruzzula was taken into police custody last month after witnesses said they watched her carry her 7-month-old daughter into the woods and return without the child.

"Never witnessed anything like this. It was terrifying," neighbor Lynn Wiser said. "How can a person do that?"

"I've never heard anything like this in my life," East McKeesport Police Chief Russ Stroschein said. "I don't know how anybody could put an 8-month-old baby in the woods and walk away."

Cutruzzula told police that she was having trouble with her mother and stepfather, and she wanted a "fresh start" and thought she was doing "the right thing," according to a criminal complaint that charges her with endangering the welfare of a child and recklessly endangering another person.

In court on Thursday, a charge of attempted homicide was added.

"She told the officers on scene that she'd become overwhelmed with the responsibilities and that's why she did what she did," Stroschein said. The woman's brother, Anthony Cutruzzula, had similar comments: "She says she couldn't handle it no more."

District Attorney Stephen Zappala said the young mother should have taken advantage of Pennsylvania's Safe Haven program. "It's as simple as walking into a hospital and saying, 'I want you to take my child,' and the hospital has an obligation under the laws of this commonwealth to take that child and report that the child has been abandoned, and you can basically walk away," he said.

Wiser said she and her son, Andy, noticed the woman with the baby walking toward the woods outside their home along Irwin Street in Wall at about 6 p.m.

“I went to my back porch so I could see better, and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s carrying something,’ and I noticed there was a baby. She sat on the ground with the baby,” said Wiser. “I dialed 911, and as I was doing that, she left the child and started walking down here.”

While she called for help, her son rushed to the baby's aid. “The child was crying, and as soon as she saw me, maybe I was a foot away from her, she stopped crying,” said Andy Wiser. There was also a bottle of milk next to the little girl. (Photos: Neighbors rescue baby left alone in woods)

As Andy Wiser brought the child down the muddy hill, the woman and a man were walking up, he said. Andy Wiser said he couldn’t make out what the woman was saying, but that he told her she couldn’t have the child because of what she did. He told Channel 4 Action News' Kelly Brennan that he couldn’t recall the woman asking for her child back.

The Wisers said the child was wearing a snowsuit and that she was wet and muddy from lying on the ground, but appeared to be OK.

"There is help for taking care of the baby and there is also help with taking the baby," Andy Wiser said. "She had so many options, she just chose the wrong one."

The Wisers aren’t calling themselves heroes, but Cutruzzula is grateful. "I would like to say thank you," she said.

Photos: Neighbors rescue baby left alone in woods

1 of 10

Jennifer Cutruzzula was taken into police custody Wednesday night after a mother and her son said they watched her carry her baby into the woods and return without the child.